Winetech Pitching Den finalists announced

Bru-nO via Pixabay

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All business development must be taken up in South Africa.

Winetech finalists

This year’s finalists come from South Africa, France, Austria, Malawi, The Netherlands and Ireland.

For wine consumers, finalists, Ask Jean, are bringing a fresh approach to choosing wine with the help of algorithms which predict whether or not you’ll like a wine before you buy it. It also helps you understand the finer details of the Wine of Origin and how to recognise and read labels; it can even suggest food pairings.

In the long term, it is also planned to be a platform for social communities based on their wine choice, among other things, which in turn could influence future buying patterns.

For wine growers, HyperVisionX and Polariks are two finalists who are improving crop monitoring to reduce operational costs and increase yields, quality and profits. HyperVisionX combines imaging technology designed for satellites with carefully engineered software to generate custom reports that better inform winegrowers about the "what, where, when, how and why" of their harvest. Their goal is to put the right information in the right hands to make decision-making a more effective, scientific and risk-mitigating process.

Polariks offers wine growers a simple, robust method to measure the most important biological aspects to wine growing and near real-time insights by making use of the promising field of hyperspectral imaging. With this technology, it is possible to objectively measure compounds that attribute to ripeness and flavour in wine grapes.

Nemabio and UV Boosting are focusing on healthy harvests by protecting plants from pests and disease.

Nemabio is producing an indigenous species of naturally occurring insect pathogens which, in combination with their symbiotic bacteria, can be used in an integrated control programme against many insect pests. UV Bootsing is the first non-chemical, effective solution for stimulating plant defences. The controlled exposure of UV cultures is a clean physical process, without any chemicals sprayed on the leaves or fruits and therefore without residue in the plant or fruits. It does not have a negative impact on fauna and flora, nor on soils or groundwater.

The French Embassy and Vinitech will present the first-placed South African start-up with a return flight to France, including transfers to Bordeaux, and tickets to the 2020 Vinitech Global Tradeshow.

Download the pitching den programme here